Calif. newspaper: Teacher fired after same-sex ceremony

A California newspaper reports that a teacher has been fired from his position at a Catholic
school after being featured with his partner in a video and story on gay marriages resuming in San
Bernardino County.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., showed teacher Ken Bencomo and partner
Christopher Persky getting married and kissing in a
video posted July 1 on the newspaper’s website. The couple also appeared in
photographs for a July 2 story in the Daily Bulletin, according to The Sun of San Bernardino
County.

This week, The Sun
reported that Bencomo’s lawyer says he was fired from his job as head of the
English department at St. Lucy's Priory High School in Glendora. He had worked at the school for 17
years.

A spokesman for the Diocese of San Bernardino told The Sun that an employee can be fired if he
or she “makes a public display of behavior that is counter to church teaching.” The Catholic Church
considers sex outside heterosexual marriage to be sinful.

The firing comes about four months after a gay physical-education teacher lost her position at a
Catholic school in Columbus.

Carla Hale, who had taught at Bishop Watterson High School for about 19 years, was fired after
she listed the name of her same-sex partner in an obituary for her mother that ran in
The Dispatch.

The bishop in Columbus has said that Hale’s decision to list her partner’s name made the
relationship public and initiated the termination process.